The Wellspring

The Youth Coalition of the ACT has released an excellent collation of Budget Measures Directly Related to Young People unveiled in last week’s Commonwealth Budget.

Two of the most exciting developments relating to youth affairs that didn’t get much of a run in the media include:

• An allocation of $8 million over four years for the Australian Youth Forum, the structure of which is currently being developed through a range of community consultations. With the National Youth Roundtable, its predecessor, having a budget of about half a million dollars, this is a sizable increase, and represents the successful culmination of nearly six years of lobbying by the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition. Documents outlining the reporting requirements for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations reveal that the Department expects the Australian Youth Forum to be “established by October 2008 as a voice to government for young people and the youth sector”. Nice!
• $6.9 million has been re-allocated towards the creation of an Office for Youth in the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, elevating the existing Youth Bureau to a higher-status Office.

Other youth-related developments that have received more press coverage include:

• Phasing out full fee-paying domestic undergraduate places at public universities: $249m over 4 years
• Doubling the number of Commonwealth Scholarships for higher education to 88 000 by 2012: a once-off $238.6m allocation
• Establishing a National Curriculum Board for Australian Schools to standardise curricula in English, Maths, the Sciences and History: $20m over 4 years
• Creation of an Education Investment Fund to fund the building of IT infrastructure, laboratories, libraries, teaching spaces, and critical student amenities in Australian universities: a once-off $500m allocation

Though not directly related, another interesting allocation reveals that $2.8m in the Attorney General’s Department budget has been dedicated towards funding a national consultation on the most appropriate methods of protecting human rights and responsibilities. Given what came out of the Australia 2020 Summit, might this be the beginning of discussions around developing the proposed Charter of Rights and Responsibilities?

For further information, download the Youth Coalition of the ACT’s excellent summary at http://www.youthcoalition.net/public/Publications/documents/download.php?maincategory=2&subcategory=5&file=2008-2009%20Budget%20Summary.pdf.